Use this Software: OpenOffice and GIMP

As of a week ago, I thought "Vista" and "open source" were incompatible words. But now I'm an experiment to use only open source. Here are a few results:

OpenOffice has been great over the last week. I actually like it better than Word. I've used it to edit large documents and formatting-heavy documents. After one crash upon installation, it has worked perfectly. I've edited documents created in Word, and saved documents in Word format, as well as pdf. As of now, I trust it both with important documents of my own editing and documents that I need other people to be able to open in Word. No need for Word anymore.

I just installed GIMP to replace my aging version of Photoshop, which I was afraid to install on Vista. I see Photoshop as an indispensible tool for any entrepreneur. So far, I like GIMP a lot. I've just been messing around. It's not a Photoshop clone, but as a Photoshop user I find it pretty easy to get around (given the background fact that Photoshop may be the hardest-to-figure-out piece of software I've ever touched).

As I argued, the best software isn't just free - it's also open source. Firefox is open source (good); Google Chrome is not (less good). Google Chrome is the Ralph Nader of browsers - don't let it mess up the election results.

Chrome (by Google) is the Usain Bolt of Browsers

With Chrome, you can find cool crap on Linkspank faster than ever before

When I heard about Google Chrome coming out as an alternative to browsing the web with Firefox or Internet Explorer (among others), I wasn't too interested at first.  I just saw the browser's appearance as part of the big G's strategy to provide everything online that you are formerly used to installing on your computer (e.g., Microsoft Office).

But I heard that Chrome was really fast, so I downloaded it.  BY GOD this browser is fast.  It's also nice to see that Linkspank works well in it.  I'm personally quite excited.

From a Linkspank perspective, Chrome underscores the mighty power of Google.  I often look at Linkspank's so-called competitors and I'm stunned by just how little they achieve.   What have all those big teams doing for all these years (quite a few years, for some of them)?  Google, on the other hand, can come in and change the game quickly.  For Linkspank, it means that we have to use our smallness as an advantage, which is an ongoing consideration in the strategy.